Hi,

I'm so excited about 64-bit processors on the desktop, and the AMD64
processors in particular, that I finally scraped some money together to buy
some hardware and installed NetBSD/AMD64 2.0.2 on it.  Everything went well
except for no support for the BCM5751 NIC.  I can accept the fact that the
NetBSD Foundation cannot pump out new stable/formal releases of NetBSD
everytime a new hardware device is put on the market, but can't the NetBSD
Foundation speed up the releases just a bit more, without someone having to
go to NetBSD-Current(?)...

Originally I saw on the NetBSD web site that the BCM5751 was supported (this
is not AMD64 specific), but later found out that the info on that page
pertained to NetBSD-Current (an oversite on my part).  Today I went to the
AMD64 web site and followed the link under "Future Releases" (Changes from
2.0 to 3.0), and found absolutely nothing for the AMD64 port.  WHY??  I
think even if the changes for the i386 apply to the AMD64, it should be
noted, and "AMD64" should be present.
http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/changes-3.0.html and
http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/changes-4.0.html

Next, I saw that there are changes listed already for NetBSD 4.0.  WHEN IS
3.0 GOING TO BE RELEASED??  I think some sort of (tentative) schedule should
be posted on the NetBSD web site (right on the front page), and the
Foundation should be a bit more committed to keeping that schedule.

I've been a huge fan of NetBSD, the OS, since about 1995, but I can
understand when one asks "Why is Linux so popular?", and it irritates me
personally.  I would prefer to use NetBSD exclusively, but they're lagging
in some important areas.

I hope you've not misunderstood my point(s), and this message gets to the
right NetBSD members, for the good of NetBSD, and especially the AMD64 port.
64-bit workstation/desktop computing is the future!

Oh, one last thing - are the iso images available from NetBSD for the i386
port compiled and optimized for the i586 class processors and up?  They
should be in my opinion (or does it not matter with NetBSD), and that info
should also be on the web site.

Thanks much!
Robert